Leon started work on the musical with the blessing of Tupac's mother Afeni Shakur, who is a producer on the show with Eric Gold. Todd Kreidler wrote the book, and Wayne Cilento is handling the show's choreography.

The musical is not based on the late rapper's life but uses his material to tell an "unconditional love story" and an "anti-violence story", according to the director.

Tupac was killed in a Las Vegas drive-by shooting in September 1996 at the age of 25.

Leon explained: "Some people look at hip-hop and they think they hate everything black or they think they hate everything that uses profanity, or they think it's about gun violence.

"When you look at the lyrics of his music, he was always talking about universal things like honor, betrayal, family.

"[Tupac] was just trying to talk about life and say something about the country and being an American and raising a family here."

The producers of the show have provided the funding for the project, which Leon has described as ready for Broadway. However, it is waiting to find a home due to a "backlog" in available venues.

Speaking about the show's unannounced cast, Leon added: "We had to have a group of actors that could sing, that could rap, that could dance - that could do hip-hop dance as well as straightforward Broadway musical dance.

"We had to have a good mix of 24 people who could do it all, but above all we needed actors who could tell the story."